| Summary: | 碩士 === 高雄醫學大學 === 護理學系碩士班 === 105 === The Emergency Department (ED) plays a critical role in the provision of medical services; however, investigations into the methods of assessment instruments and on surveys regarding the following topics are scant: ED patients’ attitudes toward medical treatment safety and their participation behaviors. Therefore, the research objectives in this study were to develop and test the reliability and validity of two scales: “Scale on ED Patients'' Attitudes toward Medical Treatment Safety” and “Scale on ED Patients'' Participation Behaviors Related to Medical Treatment Safety.” This study also aimed to determine the current conditions of ED patients in terms of their attitudes toward medical treatment safety and their participation behaviors.
We conducted a cross-sectional research design and recruited 134 patients who received medical treatments from the ED at a medical center in Southern Taiwan. Data were collected based on a self-designed scale, and were analyzed using SPSS18.0. Principal axis factoring was adopted to test the validity of the scales, and Cronbach’s α value was employed to calculate the internal consistency of the reliability analysis. We adopted Pearson''s correlation coefficients to examine the associations among the items, sub-scales, and scales. The descriptive statistics contained demographic characteristics and emergency medicine attributes. Regarding the inferential statistics, a t-test was conducted to compare the differences between ED patients’ attitudes toward medical treatment safety and participation behaviors on the basis of demographics and medical treatment attributes.
The “Scale on ED Patients'' Attitudes toward Medical Treatment Safety” contained 16 items, among which three factors were extracted and named as “cognition of medical treatment safety”, “perceptions toward medical treatment safety and communication” and “patients and treatment confirmation.” The total variance explained was 63.95% and Cronbach’s α coefficient was .91. A total of 12 items were included in “Scale on ED Patients'' Participation Behaviors Related to Medical Treatment Safety,” among which two factors were extracted and named as "participation behavior in caring" and "communication behavior in caring." The total variance explained was 46.31% and Cronbach’s α coefficient was .87.
The research samples mainly involved female patients (50.7%) with an average age of 40.96 years, most of whom were in level 3 triage (62.7%). The patients were transferred to general wards after receiving treatment in the ED. A positive tendency, in terms of patients'' attitudes toward medical treatment safety, was observed from the research results, with the patients also exhibiting a high level of participation behavior related to medical treatment safety. When the following variables: age, educational attainment, occupation, marital status, and medical treatment results were included, a significant difference was observed in patients'' attitudes toward medical treatment safety, but no significant difference was observed in their participation behaviors related to medical treatment safety.
Favorable reliability and validity resulted from both the “Scale on ED Patients'' Attitudes toward Medical Treatment Safety” and “Scale on ED Patients'' Participation Behaviors Related to Medical Treatment Safety.” These two scales can serve as the assessment instruments for determining emergency patients'' attitudes toward medical treatment safety and participation behaviors. In the future, these two scales can be applied to EDs and inpatient units at hospitals in different locations, with an aim to conduct comprehensive surveys on patient safety; in addition, qualitative research can be further conducted and items such as patients'' options can be added or modified, thereby elevating the total variance of the questionnaire’s factor analysis. We recommend that government agencies continue to promote the importance of how patient participation can elevate the safety of medical care, as well as to educate medical personnel to positively view patients'' participation in relation to medical treatment safety, thereby elevating the overall safety of medical treatment.
|
|---|
